Homemade Recycled Paper

Join us for National Craft Month in our sustainable craft series led by our crafty contributor, Lindsay, from You are the Roots blog. Here is the first of six awesome activities to introduce your little one to sustainable themes such as repurposing, recycling and using natural materials to create masterpieces.

You'll need:

- Lots of old scrap paper

- Water

- A small window screen (around $6-8 at Wal-Mart or a hardware store)

1. First, spend some time collecting scrap paper instead of throwing it away. Old grocery lists, doodles or drawings, junk mail -- it all works great!

2. Once your paper is collected (and torn into pieces), add it to a large bowl. Gradually add water until the paper is completely coated and soaked.

3. Letting kids tear up the wet paper is a great sensory activity. If they're feeling impatient, you can throw it in a food processor to speed things up (add as much water as you need for it to blend!).

4. Once your wet paper is shredded and blended, it'll form a pulp. Take the pulp and press it into your screen. You can make a few pieces of paper, or even paper in different shapes. Ethan wanted to make "the biggest, tallest piece of paper ever!" Keep pressing on the pulp to get as much water out as possible.

5. Let the pulp dry on the window screen. If you are able to leave it out in the sun, this speeds things up. It took our paper about two full days to be completely dry.

6. Once dry, remove from the window screen and get to work creating art! This is such a fun way to create something beautiful and new out of something old!